So, for a long while, we stood there together, clasped breast to breast, dumb with tenderness and mazed in the spell of first young love.
I stammered my vows, and she now opposed me nothing, only clinging to me the closer, confident, submissive, acquiescent in all I wished and asked and said.
There were ink, paper, a quill, and sand in her chamber. We went thither, and I wrote out drafts upon Schenectady, and composed letters of a.s.surance and recognition, which would be useful to her in case of necessity.
I got Jimmy Burke out o" bed and shewed him all I had writ, and made him witness our signatures and engaged him to appear if necessary.
These papers and money drafts, together with Penelope"s papers and letters she had of Douw Fonda and of the Patroon, were sufficient to establish her with the new will I made and had witnessed at the fort a week before.
And so, at midnight, in her little chamber at Burke"s Inn, I parted from Penelope Grant,--dropped to my knee and kissed her feet, who had been servant to the county gentry and courted by the county quality, but had been mistress of none in all the world excepting only of herself.
When I was ready she handed me my rifle, buckled up my shoulder sack, smoothed my fringed cape with steady hands, walked with me to her chamber door.
Her face rested an instant against mine, but there were no tears, no trembling, only the swift pa.s.sion of her lips; and then--"G.o.d be with you, John Drogue!" And so, with gay courage, closed her chamber door.
I turned and stumbled out along the corridor, carrying my rifle and feeling my way to the hand-rail, down the creaking stairway, and out into the starry night.
CHAPTER XXVII
FIRE-FLIES
That night I lay on my blanket in the forest, but slept only three hours, and was awake in the gates of morning before the sun rose, ready to move on to the Wood of Brakabeen, our rendezvous in Schoharie.
Never shall I forget that August day so crowded with events.
And first in the yellow flare of sun-up, on the edge of a pasture where acres of dew sparkled, I saw a young girl milking; and went to her to beg a cup of new milk.
But she was very offish until she learned to what party I belonged, and then gave me a dipper full of sweet milk.
When I had satisfied my thirst, she took me by the hand and drew me into a grove of pines where none could observe us. And here she told me her name, which was Angelica Vrooman, and warned me not to travel through Schoharie by any highway.
For, said she, the district was all smouldering with disloyalty, and the Tories growing more defiant day by day with news of Sir John"s advance and McDonald also on the way from the southward to burn the place and murder all.
"My G.o.d, sir," says she, in a very pa.s.sion of horror and resentment, "I know not how we, in Schoharie, shall contrive, for Herkimer has called out our regiment and they march this morning to their rendezvous with the Palatine Regiment.
"What are we to do, sir? The Middle Fort alone is defensible; the Upper and Lower Forts are still a-building, and sodders still at labour, and neither ditch nor palisade begun."
"You have your exempts," said I, troubled, "and your rangers."
"Our exempts work on the forts; our rangers are few and scattered, and Colonel Harper knows not where to turn for a runner or a rifleman!
"General Schuyler has writ to my father and says how he desires General Ten Broeck to order out the whole of the militia, only that he fears that they will behave like the Schenectady and Schoharie militia have done and that very few will march unless provision is made for their families" security.
"A man rides express today to the garrison in the Highlands to pray for two hundred Continentals. Which is only just, as we are exposed to McDonald and Sir John, and have already sent most of our men to the Continental Line, and have left only our regiment, which marches today, and the remainder all disaffected and plotting treason."
"Plotting treason? What do you mean, child?" I demanded anxiously.
"Why, sir, Captain Mann and his company refuse to march. He declares himself a friend to King George, has barricaded Brick House,[36] is collecting Indians and Tories, and swears he will join McDonald"s outlaws and destroy us unless we lay down our arms and accept royal protection."
[Footnote 36: The house stood in the forks of the Albany and Schenectady road.]
"Why--why the filthy dog!" I stammered, "I have never heard the like of such treason!"
"Can you help us, sir?" she asked earnestly.
"I shall endeavour to do so," said I, red with wrath.
"Our people have planned to seize and barricade Stone House," said she.
"My father rides express to Albany. Why, sir, so put to it are we that Henry Hager, an aged exempt of over seventy years, is scouting for our party. Is our situation not pitiful?"
"Have all the young men gone? Have you no brothers to defend this house?"
"No, sir.... I have a lover.... He is Lieutenant Wirt, of the Albany Light Horse. But he has writ to my father that he can not leave his cavalry to help us."
It was sad enough; and I promised the girl I would do what I could; and so left her, continuing on along the fences in the shadow of the woods.
It was not long afterward when I heard military music in the distance.
And now, from a hill, I saw long files of muskets shining in the early sun.
It was the Canajoharie Regiment marching with fife, drum, and bugle-horn to join Herkimer; and so near they pa.s.sed at the foot of the low hill where I stood that I could see and recognize their mounted officers; and saw, riding with them, Spencer, the Oneida interpreter, splendidly horsed; and Colonel c.o.x, old George Klock"s smart son-in-law, who, when Brant asked him if he were not related to that thieving villain of the Moonlight Survey, replied: "Yes, I am, but what is that to you, you s--- of an Indian!"
I saw and recognized Colonels Vrooman and Zielie, Majors Becker and Eckerson, and Larry Schoolcraft, the regimental adjutant; and, sitting upon their transport waggon, Dirck Larraway, Storm Becker, Jost Bouck of Clavarack, and Barent Bergen of Kinderhook.
So, in the morning sunshine, marched the 15th N. Y. Militia, carrying in its ranks the flower of the district"s manhood and the princ.i.p.al defenders of the Schoharie Valley.
Very soberly I turned away into the woods.
For it was a strange and moving and dreadful sight I had beheld, knowing personally almost every man who was marching there toward the British fire, and aware that practically every soldier in those st.u.r.dy ranks had a brother, or father, or son, or relative of some description in the ranks of the opposing party.
Here, indeed, were the seeds of horror that civil war sprouts! For I think that only the Hager family, and perhaps the Beckers, were all mustered in our own service. But there were Tory Vroomans, Swarts, Van Dycks, Eckersons, Van Slycks--aye, even Tory Herkimer, too, which most furiously saddened our brave old General Honikol.
Well, I took to the forest as I say, but it was so thick and the travelling so wearisome, that I bore again to the left, and presently came out along the clearings and pasture fences.
Venturing now to travel the highway for a little way, and being stopped by n.o.body, I became more confident; and when I saw a woman washing clothes by the Schoharie Creek, I did not trouble to avoid her, but strode on.
She heard me coming, and looked up over her shoulder; and I saw she was a notorious slattern of the Valley, whose name, I think, was Staats, but who was commonly known as Rya"s Pup.
"Aha!" says she, clearing the unkempt hair from her ratty face. "What is Forbes o" Culloden doing in Schoharie? Sure," says she, "there must be blood to sniff in the wind when a Northesk bloodhound comes here a-nosing northward!"
"Well, Madame Staats," said I calmly, "you appear to know more about Culloden than do I myself. Did that great loon, McDonald, tell you all these old-wives" tales?"
"Ho-ho!" says she, her two hands on her hips, a-kneeling there by the water"s edge, "the McDonalds should know blood, too, when they smell it."